Himself(81)

Shauna refills the sugar bowl and sets it next to Bridget. ‘How’s she coming on?’

Bridget empties a handful of sugar into her cup. ‘She’s primped and painted. She wanted a moment to herself, so I left her outside swearing at the squirrels.’

‘She’s in that kind of mood?’

Bridget stirs her tea, licks the back of the spoon and puts it back in the sugar bowl. ‘She is.’

‘How does she look?’

‘Terrifying. Like the Virgin Queen herself.’

‘Well, she wanted the Bette Davis style.’

‘She did.’

Shauna, at the sink, looks over her shoulder. ‘I’m glad you could help her.’

‘She wanted you really.’

Shauna rolls her eyes.

‘She’s a twisted old bitch, granted, but she cares about you, Shauna. She’d be lost—’

‘Ah, don’t.’

Bridget lifts the teapot. ‘Isn’t there anything else to pour the tea out of? I could piss straighter than this.’ She fills a cup and pushes it across the table. ‘Cross my palm?’

Shauna sits down, rooting around in the pocket of her apron. ‘I’ve nothing – a sweet wrapper?’

‘I’ll accept that.’

Shauna drinks the tea then hands the cup back. She loves this. It’s a joke, sure, but there’s always something in it that makes her think. She sits in silence and watches as the tea leaves move around the cup under Bridget’s narrowed eyes, swilled anticlockwise. Bridget tips out the excess liquid, sets the cup right and peers inside.

Shauna leans forward expectantly. ‘What do you see?’

Bridget sucks air slowly through her teeth. If she holds the cup at an angle and squints a bit she can make out a battleaxe, Italy without its boot heel, and a fly swat. Or it could be a butterfly, a pair of one-legged trousers and a frying pan.

‘There’s travel abroad to a hot climate.’

‘Is there marriage? A future between us?’

‘Well, you’re half-suited.’

‘Is that it?’

‘And if you don’t go over water you’ll pass it.’

‘No babies?’

‘And watch yourself about the kitchen, Shauna. Hot fat doesn’t bode well for you.’

Bridget hands the cup back to Shauna. ‘Let him take you out a bit first. Let him court you. Just think it. Down to Ennismore for a view of that premium John Wayne film.’

Shauna joins in. ‘Dinner afterwards at the Atlantic Hotel, with the prawn cocktail.’

Bridget taps her arm. ‘That’s it! And if you’re meant to be with him you’ll be with him. Although it’ll be like strapping yourself to a bloody rocket.’

Shauna grins.

Bridget laughs. ‘A rocket ride, is that what you want? Well then, the best of luck to you, girl.’

Bridget finishes her tea and turns her cup, upends it, rights it and studies it for a long time.

‘What does it say, Bridget?’

Bridget looks up, her face suddenly tired. ‘It says nothing. Nothing at all.’

Today will surely be the last fair day. After today, everyone says, Irish weather will resume and it will be downhill all the way to Christmas. After today, the rain will be a constant visitor, drawing up its chair and putting on its sitting britches. But the rain seems far away right now as the sun roars down from the cloud-bald sky.

By midday the sun is belting down on the coachloads arriving in the square from out of town. It sends the daddies gasping into Kerrigan’s Bar and the mammies sweating and muttering as they unpack babies and granddads, flasks and sandwiches.

The same sun alights on the astounding figure of Mrs Cauley as she sits smoking a cigarette in her wheelchair. Over her head, slung from one end of the village hall to the other, is a sign, The Playboy of the Western World by John Millington Synge, in big gold letters. There are flowering shrubs on either side of the doorway tied with green and gold ribbons. Inside the door Teasie Lavelle and Mrs Moran are at their stations selling tickets. The people form a queue and wait their turn as Teasie counts out the change and hands them a programme. They begin to take their seats in the hall, the mammies and the daddies dug out of the pub, the old and the young, familiar faces and some less so.

Teasie smiles across at Mrs Moran, feeling her nerves uncoil. She has wrapped Mammy up well and left her at home with a flask and a plate of sandwiches. She has locked all the doors and checked them twice. She is looking forward to a full day with no one roaring any predictions at her, or gabbering in tongues, or staring around them glassy-eyed and moaning.

Mahony, costumed to the hilt, steps outside to a chorus of wolf whistles.

‘Here he is now.’

‘Here’s himself.’

‘You’re a fine figure of a man, Mahony.’

They roar.

Mahony salutes them and walks over to Mrs Cauley. In his white shirt and tight britches he looks younger; he’s shaved and maybe even washed his hair. Mrs Cauley could kiss him.

He lights a fag and scowls up at the sun. ‘Am I Christy enough for you?’

‘You are,’ she says. ‘Don’t we make a fine-looking pair? Jesus, we’re blessed.’

Mrs Cauley is majestic in fur, gold brocade and a foot-high ginger pompadour. Her make-up has been applied with an unsparing hand, even over the bandage across her nose. Her blackened eyes beneath lend a kind of damaged drama. The rest of the bruises she hides with a mandarin collar and a man’s silk cravat.